How well do you know your 2016 Presidential Candidates?

CitizenNet Audience Mapping + 2016 Presidential Election

So far, the 2016 U.S. Presidential election has been wildly unpredictable keeping everyone guessing as to who will take the oval office. Since we don't have a crystal ball to see into the future, we decided to settle on the next best thing and run three of the candidates through our Audience Mapping tool: Trump, Sanders & Clinton.

How do we know who has an expressed interest towards each candidate?

CitizenNet utilizes Facebook's reach estimates for interest targeting. Facebook calculates these values by scanning content on timelines, apps usage, ad engagement, Page likes and other activities on and off Facebook and Instagram.

How it Works: CitizenNet Audience Mapping

The Audience Mapping tool generates a full report breaking out audiences across location, gender, age and interests. One section in the report is the Geographical Analysis which reveals notable markets by index. According to Machine Learning Engineer Aaron Chu, "The system first finds the percentage of users with an expressed interest for a candidate within a specific DMA. Then an index score is developed by normalizing it against the overall percentage of the U.S. population who has an interest in one of the candidates. The result is a way to identify DMA's that over or under index for an interest." The chart shows green regions which represent over indexing in an area and reflects a strong interest and may support direct response efforts. Conversely, red regions represents opportunities for growth as the interest from the audience is smaller than expected. The presence of green or red is not to be mistaken for popularity. For example, if one area under indexes, it's not to say they aren't a popular candidate in that region, but more that there is a lower concentration there when compared against other regions for that candidate.

Why is this information useful?

Knowing how your brand indexes in the United States is vital information for targeting and can help explain past campaign performance while informing future decisions. The red regions might indicate a lack of awareness or interest in the candidate. This leaves the potential to run ad campaigns for Brand Awareness in order to cast a wide net and prime the audience. Retargeting strategies can then push them down the funnel and help to build a positive relationship. Conversely, if you have a limited budget or are conversion driven, you would want to target the green markets to ensure top performance and return.

Guess the Candidate

Can you correctly guess which Geographic Analysis chart belongs to which presidential candidate? Test your knowledge and click on the text below each graph to reveal the answer.